German -DCMA like - copyright law will be valid from September 13th

September 12, 2003

An Chang used our news submit to tell us that much discussed German copyright law will be valid from tomorrow, September 13th. The law that has many times been refered to as the DCMA of Germany will restrict making digital copies of movies, music and software much more then current German copyright laws. The authors of CloneCD, software that is used to circumvent copy protections, something that is according to the company no longer prohibited by the German law have already moved their company, first to Swiss, now to the carribean island of Antiqua.

Other companies, such as e.g. Engelmann Media, developers of game copy software GameJack have not made any efforts in moving their company. The exact consequences of the law are uncertain at the moment, many lawsuits will probably tell us in the future how strict the law really is. The law is based on the European Copyright Directive, which will be used to make new copyright laws in all countries of the European Union.

Badly translated with Babelfish from German:

Das neue Urheberrecht ist heute im Bundesgesetzblatt veré¶ffentlicht worden. Es tritt am 13. September 2003 in Kraft. Das Gesetz zur Regelung des Urheberrechts in der Informationsgesellschaft reagiert auf die technischen Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre. Mit Anbruch des digitalen Zeitalters war es erforderlich, den Schutz der Urheber auch auf die Verwertung im Internet zu erstrecken. Damit wird der bestehende Schutz des geistigen Eigentums ausgebaut. Von zentraler Bedeutung sind die Vorschriften des Gesetzes zum Schutz technischer MaéŸnahmen, mit denen Kreative und Verwerter ihre Leistungen sché¼tzen und die Nutzung kontrollieren. 'žWer '“ ganz gleich ob gewerblich oder privat, entgeltlich oder unentgeltlich '“ Musik, Filme oder Computerspiele im Internet zum Download anbietet und verbreitet, ohne hierzu berechtigt zu sein, macht sich strafbar", betonte Bundesjustizministerin Brigitte Zypries.

Currently no other developers of software have announced to move their company, some smallers software project have been ceased because of fear for the new law, but at the current moment most people don't seem to be scared. The horror scenario would be that retail packages of copy software would be ceased by the authorities and the developers and distributors would end up in jail or with huge fines, but only the future will tell the exact impact of this new law.

Source: BMJ.de